M17x R1 - Features we want in future BIOS's

The funny part is that yes they begin at the same price, i also want a qx9300, having great battery life with the 9400mg is awesome, should because they fixed a lot of problems with the R2 they should give us all way options in the bios and correct voltages and seriously there is still thousands of people who spent 3,500 for the R1 and now we will never get half of the money we will get back. This thread cannot die!

 

Well, the more people we can get contributing here the better our odds of getting some sort of result...

 

I agree scook9, i actually complained to the blackhawk team and some other things, i really get pissed off every time these incompetent tech support tell me we can't support you cause your not running the OS your running uh excuse me some have helped me sheesh this is so stupid. Then why do you put the drivers up to support windows 7!

 

What exactly happened with blackhawk team?

 

Forgot, I emailed them and told them on facebook about this thread as well.

 

Mem/Motherboard Chipset/CPU VOLTAGE!!!!!!!

Memory timings also!


If only one voltage option is possible then just give me the cpu voltage.

I'm sick of going from 7-7-7-20 to 11-9-9-27 if I overclock one Mhz in the BIOS .

I have a QX9300. I might as well unleash its potential. The processor hits 73c (highest out of all 4 cores) in intel cpuburntest. I have plenty of room to overclock further.

 

That is a limitation of your ram, not the BIOS. Get some HyperX and you are set (mine do 7-7-7 all the way upto 1333)

Now with the 5870s out I may be jumping ship though this summer haha

 

My ram is samsung PC8500. The SPD timings are supposed to be 8-8-8-23 up to 609Mhz.

Damn samsung.

 

New item for the list (if it is not there already)

Support for the 5870m in single and dual configuration

 

+1 on the 5870 support. That's major for me. I just sent Chris a PM asking if it was supported or if a BIOS update would be made available.

 

I really wish they would at least give us some sort of feedback on the requests we have here (all of which are perfectly reasonable I will add)

 

They didn't give feedback for more important things, this will rather go unnoticed... and that would be a shame...

 

I also support 5870 bios update. Its such a shame when you spend thousands on a laptop that becomes yesterdays news within a couple of weeks. I mean cmon it's not asif were asking for them to redesign the whole thing... just an update so they can justify their claim of "All Powerful".

 

I also question what their point of using the MXM spec is if they aren't going to support all of the cards that *they themselves provide* that will fit the slot.

 

Just received, per Chris M from Dell:

"I was told today that the ATI Radeon Mobility HD 5870 will not be validated in the M17x R1 or the M15x."

So there you have it. :-/

 

I guess they won't bother with another bios update or new chipset drivers, or a new firmware update for the eject button, etc...

 

I asked him if they gave any reasoning and he said they did not. I asked if he could inquire as to why, but I wouldn't get hopes up at this point. I'm skeptical of any further BIOS update at this point now. I think we're already considered "end of life".

 

That is pretty lame of them.....it didn't work so we made one that did and abandon all the original customers....

 

Unfortunately that's how it seems Scook...

 

All we can do is wait until the official release of the 5870 and someone give it a shot. For all we know the Dell cards may just work. Fingers crossed still.

 

I do not even care as much about the 5870 stuff, just figured there is NO reason for it to not be supported (not asking them to offer the cards in new R1's, but give is the upgrade option - officially)

I care more about the overclocking stuff really - since I cannot afford new cards at the moment anyways

 

Dell should be doing bios updates for the R1 .Considering all the teething problems & current ongoing problems it is a disgrace on there behalf.DellBillB said he would follow dpc latency thread until it was solved were you been?.Dell should prioritize R1 customers for at least another year considering all the problems.Most R1 owners for the first year had nothing but problems.Come on Dell pull your finger out.

 

It seems that I have to contact Team Blackhawk and find out what they have to say about those issues

 

I would recommend that, the more people made knowledgeable of the problems, the better the chances of at least an acknowledgment on the matter

 

The way i see it R1 owners were the beta testers,i myself had heaps of problems with mine all dpc latency related.Why should the people that spent hard earned cash on the R1 flagship @ the time now be kicked to the kerb.Currently the R1 still has these problems & Dell have been silent.The only reason we got a Dell presence back then was all the bad press that was flying about on Engadget etc etc.Soon as there was some reporting on this on internet sites Dell would be back in here like flies around some fresh bull .

 

Update from DellChrisB regarding R1 compatibility:

 

But what about the other stuff we want? Point him here too

 

yeah we did put up with alot, It would be, at the least....nice of dell to give us the R1 owners a whql for the beta with improvement for all the current crop of games and a bios, maybe even just chipset driver update....nothing at all

 

Fix the BIOS option to disable no adaptor warning, if you disable the warning now, it warns you evey time even if you are plugged in, drives me nuts

 

Hmm. BIOS A04 is out for the M17x. Not much for fixes though, in fact none of the fixes were for problems I was even aware of. This appears to be for both the R1 and R2. How can they run the same BIOS with different processor architectures? Although, the update does say it only updates the EC..

Copyright (C) 2009, All Rights reserved.
Laptops, Desktop Computers, Monitors, Printers & PC Accessories | Dell
=======================================================================================
BIOS Release Notes
=======================================================================================
***************************************************************************************
Systems : QuickSilver
BIOS Version : A04
Release Date: 04/28/2010
VBIOS version: 62.79.60.00.03
ITE EC Version: 12.59

=======================================================================================
Input filename: A04.rom with A.bat
Word checksum: 0x5FCA
Dword checksum: 0x13D7 5FCA
=======================================================================================

BIOS change:
1. None.

EC change:
1. EC chip enter sleep mode when system stay in S5 with battery mode for reduce power consumption.
2. Allow battery to charge once it has been discharged completely.
3. Modify the 9 volts battery for wakeup from the current time to 30 seconds.
4. Fixed When system resume from S3/S4/reatrt and Stealth mode is Enable, the CPU clock did not throttle.

 

Well I'm back from the dead. A04 update worked.. BUT.. when I went in and disabled the integrated graphics in the BIOS (all BIOS settings are reset), for whatever reason when I booted the next time, both my 280Ms were not seen in Windows and I saw it installing device drivers for the 9400M. Confused, I did a few reboots, enabling/disabling Stealth Mode. Finally, I was able to get it to see the 280Ms again, and I let it reinstall the video drivers for them. After I rebooted this time I went into the BIOS again and I noticed that the laptop had re-enabled the integrated graphics again on its own. I'm not sure why, but that seems to have been part of my issue. I'm not sure if the laptop really didn't see the 280Ms on the first boot after the BIOS update or what. Regardless, this simple update turned into nearly an hour fiasco of getting my dedicated cards back up and running on appropriate drivers. Grr!

 

Hmmm. Investigating this now.

Fingers crossed!

 

Others have updated without issues. What I experienced seemed to be an isolated incident.

 

I did the installation, no problem, but I don't see the point of this BIOS update that only fixes very minor problems while ignoring more serious ones or ignoring those features that we requested. At least someone from Dell should reply on that and let us know if it's feasible or not... so we don't wait in vain and move on

 

I agree. Now I am really pissed because they will wonder why we are not happy with this new and useless BIOS.

No OC changes at all.....no beep, numlock, fans, nothing but stupid power adapter warning

 

I experienced the same issue last nite when I applied the bios.....so weird. and the ac adaptor warning prompted in the boot up page that has never happened since Ive had my M17x, so once again what are they doing at dell....?

 

I have been having small issues with application of the new bios: ac adapter warning, left fan is not on during gaming only my right fan is on. I never had these issues before has anyone else experiencing this also.

 

Can you disable the AC Adaptor warning in the BIOS? I know you can do so in the M11x, so I thought it may be possible in the new A04. Hopefully this isn't a sign that they are relaxing support of the older systems. Pretty disappointing.

 

Ut oh. I had the A/C adapter warning last night too for the first time, but it was probably the 4th time I'd shut down and unplugged my computer before it happened. Even Windows 7 said my adapter wasn't supported and it would run off batteries instead. Another full shutdown and restart fixed it, and here at work this morning I did not receive the error. Too coincidental for this to be completely isolated. I'll post again if the same problem occurs.

I gamed last night for a bit and noticed my temps were slightly higher. I'm a little concerned about my fan, too, but I hadn't bothered to check it. I'm at work now so I can't check the fan situation with games until I go home. I'll let you know my findings on that, too. If either persist, I can get Dell involved.

Also, I received this response from Chris M at Dell regarding 5870 support in the R1:

If/when I get a response back I'll update you all on that, as well.

 

Hmm.. I also just stumbled upon update notes for the M15x, for BIOS A05 that was just released:

Change BIOS version to A05
2. Implement IBX Sighting #3306647 (Fix PCH B3 USB not working in Win 7)
3. BF1 Patch: Disclare PSIFLAG2 sturcture, then phlash16 will update UEFI variable while flash (clear UEFI varialble partition to "0")
4. Fix error Warning during POST : IRQ not configured - PCI in slot 06 Bus:02, Device:00, Function:01" at PSOT screen
5. BF2 patch: Make BIOS won`t add iamt/iamt2 variable to UEFU variable partition.
6. Providing phlash16.exe (Ver 1.7.0.21) can update ME firmware.
7. Fixing E-SATA issue for production.
8. Update KBC to Version 1.06 for support AMD Broadway/Madison thermal policy
9. Update BIOS can recognize Broadway/Madsion/N10P-GS/N10E-GT1 and inform EC to choice the right thermal policy
10.Fix Broadway/MadSion with CFD require to support ATI DOS diagnosis tool

Broadway = 5870M ( link) Code name for 5870.

This would be extremely sad if the lower end M15x just received added support for the 5870 and the M17x R1 flagship model does not.

 

When that bios came out is when the fad to do a self upgrade to the 5870 started.

 

Ah ok, I don't follow the M15x daily because, well, I don't have one! Haha.. hopefully we can get some answers from Dell regarding the R1 and why it wouldn't be supported when it runs the same pci-e interface.

 

In this context, Broadway only applies to 5850 even though the generic term applies to all 58xx. Pushing the 5870 under heavy load could lead to thermal induced GPU throttling.

 

Understood. However, the cooling solution on the R1 and R2 are identical in that regard, and thus that isn't a valid argument for supporting the R2 and not the R1. In fact, the 280Ms have a much higher TDP than both ATI cards, and according to ATI the TDP for the 5870s are actually *lower* than even the 4870s, coming in at only 50W. Source:

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 GPU Specifications

Therefore, if the 280M SLI and 4870x2 are both supported, the 5870x2 should be supported without a concern for overheating. Regardless, with the R1 and R2 having the same cooling solution for the cards, we're talking apples to apples.

 

My post got deleted?
no it didn't screwed up nevermind

 

I still don't know who else can we contact and find out if we gonna ever have those features...

 

Please keep the A04 discussion/observations confined to that thread. It will help to keep all of them in one place.

Thanks.

 

Sorry for that BatBoy, if you don't mind, could you move my posts that are not not relevant to this thread, to the A04 discussion? Thanks

 

Yeah - I'll move the A04 posts. No worries - just wanted to keep all of the A04 in the other thread for better visibility

Thanks.

 

It's official from Dell. No 5870 officially supported on the R1.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/482224-ati-radeon-mobility-hd-5870-m15x-m17x.html